Eleanor and Santa have peaked in their first year.

It's too bad that Eleanor is too young to remember this Christmas later because she is having a time. I haven't even gotten into the hijinks from the latter half of our visit home. But today we went to see Santa and it was the most flawless Santa-seeing experience ever.

As soon as we see Santa's village and all its sparkles and baubles Eleanor is all like, oooOOOOooo, which is a thing she learned from Felix and it is the adorablest. And then we come around the corner and there is no line and here I am, armed with toys and snacks and prepared to wait hours. And Eleanor sees Santa and is like, HI! HI! HI! HI! I think she thinks he is her Elf on the Shelf come to life.

So I plunk her down and she gives him a good stare, like she does

and I start chatting him up because there's no one waiting and I'm sort of curious what the life of a mall-Santa is like, and Eleanor finishes memorizing his face so she can look around and check out his digs

and investigate his beard (it's angora goat. His wife bought for him because the other beard was too harsh and photographed badly)

and finally she looks at me like ha ha, this guy:

Victoire.